Spooky, right? Did a little fiddling with Photo Booth yesterday and — VOILA!

From self’s story “First Causes” (Work-in-progress):

On a dying Earth, one of the last human colonies struggles on in the Philippines . . . And if the language doesn’t sound even the slightest bit Filipino, it’s because this is the far far future, and no one knows what we’ll be talking like, for crying out loud.

The main character’s named Dragon, and his Friends With Benefits, Her (That really is her name: Her) had an unfortunate run-in with Big, a classmate. She was dragged out of the classroom, and now Dragon finds himself the butt of jokes in front of the teacher, Fire Lizard (who really is a lizard. Or will soon become one. Strontium 90 and etc. Anyhoo)

Self looked him up last Fall, when she was wandering around the East Coast.

She didn’t even know his name, then.

All she knew was that, in the days following 9/11, she was stuck on Salon.com, reading anything and everything.

And there was a piece titled:

Juilliard Student Plays the Concert of His Life

Maybe that’s not the exact title, but that was the gist.

It was first-person. The writer was a freshman at Juilliard when 9/11 happened. He didn’t even have to think twice: he grabbed his violin, headed downtown. And then, he played in the Armory. Hours and hours. Until his fingers bled (? She thinks, anyway). And Juilliard sent its students to keep the music going. The students literally played until they couldn’t lift their arms anymore. Firemen were standing there, weeping. Exhausted and weeping.

Salon.com is still around (Thank goodness. It has introduced self to so many good writers) From time to time, self will do an archive search on Salon.com, but she never found the original posting. But, by dint of patient digging and Google, she found the student’s name. And she found his website. She found that the Armory concert was only the first of many good acts he was to do.

His latest project? He is “traveling to all 50 states in 2016, asking What is American culture?”

Read his blog so you can follow him along. There’s still a lot of 2016 left!

Algiers still scares me, though. It has nothing to say to me and remembers neither me nor my family. And picture this: One summer, it was 1963, I think, right after Independence, I went back to Algiers . . . But I barely got out of the train station before I lost my resolve and turned back.

— The Meursault Investigation, Kamel Daoud (translated from the French by John Cullen)

— If I Write You This Poem, Will You Make It Fly, by Simeon Dumdum, Jr.

Simeon Dumdum, Jr. has written six books, four of which won the National Book Award given by the Manila Critics Circle. He works as a regional trial court judge in Cebu City and lives with his wife and daughter in Mohon, Talisay City, Cebu.